Romance

FALLON
“Silenzio, Milo!” Leone snaps without breaking eye contact. “I would like to savor this moment.”
Sweat drips down my spine as I weigh my options, each one bleaker than the last. The air is thick with my blood and underlying fear, but I make no move, the guns are the only barrier between me and the abyss of my death.
“Last chance,” Leone whispers, his voice a velvet threat. “Join me, or watch everything you love crumble.”
“I choose option three,” I tell him, and I lift one of the guns I’m holding to my temple.
Leone’s laugh, dark and menacing, the sound bounces off the walls. “Bravo, Fallon,” he says, a slow clap accompanying his feigned admiration. “But do you honestly think you can bluff your way out of this?”
“Who said anything about bluffing?” I retort, my gaze locked on his.
“Put the gun down, cara mia,” he coaxes, his tone dripping with deceitful warmth. “We both know you won

FALLON
A wicked chuckle rumbles in Leone’s throat as he toys with the barrel, unyielding steel sliding in and out of me, building up friction. My shirt hitches up, revealing the tender bare flesh, and his hand clamps on my breast with a bruising intensity, making me cry out.
He revels in his depraved game, the gun’s barrel a cold intrusion that buries deep inside me. His free hand inches my shirt upward, further revealing me more to Milo as he kneads and teases my breast ruthlessly.
“One,” Leone murmurs into the deafening silence, his eyes ablaze with raw lust. His hand moves lower, settling on my lower stomach, and his thumb moves, finding its way to my clit. The sudden contact sends a jolt of pleasure coursing through me, contorting my features into a mask of confused desire.
“What is it, bella? Suddenly death scares you, or is it knowing how you’ll die that is scaring you? I promise t

FALLON
I’m barely conscious when my father calls me about an hour later. I jolt at the sound of the phone, my head had been resting on the wall where I sit, struggling to keep my eyes open.
“Fallon,” my father says.
“What?” I groan in agony as the adrenaline wears off.
“They said her surgery was already paid for,” I sputter at his words.
“Payment was processed an hour after Dr. Stevens called you last night, here I’m waiting for them to finish up.”
My brows furrow. No, that isn’t right, I haven’t left. My eyes flick to Leone, and he folds his arms across his chest. My grip on the gun tightens as I awkwardly try to hold the phone, and keep my aim directed on them.
“What do you mean it was already paid for?” I ask. Leone clears his throat and my eyes dart to him; he is the only person who knew I had taken a call earlier and the only person I know with that kind of money. Something tells me it was him, but why?
“Have someone call me when she is out.”
“Fallon!” my dad murmurs. “What are you going to do?” I swallow thickly. I know I’m not leaving here alive.
“I love you, Dad. Tell Emma I love her,” I remind him.
“Wait, Fallen!” I hang up before he can say anything else.
I set the phone on the table and retake my position.
“You paid for the surgery,” I tell him, and he says nothing.
“Why?”
He offers no answers. My arm trembles, the gun wavering in my grasp as I fight to keep it trained on Leone’s impassive face.
Milo shifts, his eyes darting between the gun and my pale face. “You’re losing a lot of blood. I don’t think this is going to end well for you.”
“Shut up,” I hiss, though the edges of my vision are blurring, dark spots dancing before my eyes. I blink rapidly, trying to clear them. Moving to the chair, I drag it closer to the wall and sit down, using the wall and chair to help prop my arm up, which is pointing the gun at Leone.
“Get me a first aid kit!” I snap at Milo. Milo looks at Leone, who nods and then rushes off. When he returns, I sit up straighter, only now realizing I slump slightly.
Milo fumbles with the first aid kit when I realize I must put down one of the guns. “Wrap my arm and shoulder,” I order him, and he again looks at Leone, who nods. Milo steps closer and then kneels while I point the gun directly at his head. “Try anything, and authorities will be scooping your brains from the floor, understood?” I ask. He glares at me but starts wrapping my shoulder.
“And I want your shirt,” I tell him.
“Anything else? Want my boxer shorts, too?” he asks.
“You wear boxer shorts? Are you five years old,” I taunt, and he glares at me but reaches back with one hand, tugging his shirt off. He leaves it in my lap. “Now, get over there with him,” I motion for him to go sit with Leone. He does, and I awkwardly pull the shirt on.
Blood seeps through the bandages wrapped crudely around me—staining the shirt a deep crimson that seems to pulse with each throb of pain coursing through me. My breaths come in shallow gasps, the metallic tang of blood heavy on my tongue.
“Let us help you, Fallon. You’re going to drop dead of blood loss before he calls,” Leone coaxes, standing and taking a slow step forward.
“Stay back!” The shout is weak, but it stops him. Then, the shrill ring of my phone slices through the tension. My heart skips a beat, hammering against my chest. That ringtone—I’d know it anywhere. It is the one I had set for any call from the hospital about Emma.
“Are you going to get that?” Milo asks, nodding toward the vibrating device on the nearby table.
“Answer it, Milo,” I order, my voice barely above a whisper as I struggle to maintain consciousness. “Put it on speaker.”
He hesitates, then moves slowly to the phone. The moment he answers it, it fills the room with a familiar voice relaying news I am both desperate and terrified to hear.
“Ms. McAllister?” A voice cracks through the speaker. “This is Dr. Stevens. I have an update on Emma’s condition.”
“Go on,” I urge, adjusting my grip on the gun.
“Your sister…” The doctor pauses, and everything within me is still.
“Her surgery… it was extensive,” Dr. Stevens’s voice filters through the speaker, clinical yet not devoid of empathy. “But she’s out now. She’s stable.”
“Stable? What does that mean? Is she going to be okay?”
“She will be okay,” Dr. Stevens tells me, and I let out a breath as Milo hangs up.
I can feel the warmth seeping from the wound at my shoulder, more a slow trickle now.
With each passing minute, my thoughts swirl, a maelstrom of memories and fear. Every sacrifice, bruise, and tear shed has always been for them, for Emma. The idea of failing her now makes me tighten my grip on the gun, the metal biting into my palm.
“Time won’t change anything,” Milo says calmly, his eyes never leaving mine. “You’re stalling and bleeding out, Fallon. Let us help you. Stop being so damn stubborn.”
“No!” The word is a bullet itself, shot from a place of raw terror. “You think I’m going to trust you? After everything?” I spit.
“Listen to yourself,” Leone chides, his tone almost bored. “You’re delirious. You need help.”
“From you?” I laugh, a sound edged with hysteria. “I’d sooner die.”
“I can get you some help,” Leone offers.
“So what, I can be your prisoner?” I rasp.
He shrugs. “You prefer to die?” he asks, and I blink, knowing I am not far from passing out. But if I kill them, his men will hunt down my family, yet I won’t become some tortured slave owned by Leone Pressutti either.
“How much longer do you think until you pass out from blood loss?”
The muzzle of the gun quivers in my grasp as I lock eyes with Leone, the man who has turned my life into a living hell. My arms are tense, every muscle coiled tight. I could feel the sweat beading at my temple and hear my pulse thumping rapidly in my ears.
“You think you can take us both?” His dark eyes gleam with amusement, and a slow, sinister smile spreads across his full lips.
“Shut up!” I snap.
He takes a casual step forward, and I tighten my grip on the gun. “So fiery, so full of life. It would be a shame to snuff out such passion.”
“Stay back, Leone,” I warn, trying to keep the tremor from my voice. Every cell in my body screams for me to run, but this is about more than just me; it is about my family, their safety dangling on a precipice.
“Or what, Fallon?” he mocks, his tone dripping with venomous charm. “We both know you won’t shoot me. Have you ever fired a gun before?”
I adjust the gun and aim it at the wall behind him. I pull the trigger. The bang is loud and far off from where I was aiming. Hitting the door behind him instead. Leone doesn’t even flinch. He glances at the door behind him.
“I have now, so try me,” I say through gritted teeth.
Leone laughs, a deep, throaty sound that vibrates with malice. “Wow, she knows how to pull a trigger, not rocket science, but can you kill someone?” he asks.
“Because that’s the only way you’re walking out of this room,” he warns me.
“Not that you’d get far. I doubt you would make it out of the building before my men hunted you down.”
“And then your family. Shoot me, and they’ll suffer unimaginable horrors. Put the gun down, and I may think of letting them live. Or pull the trigger, kill me. But either way, your family suffers. And it’s all because you couldn’t play nice.”
“You think this is a game?” I demand, my heart pounding against my rib cage as I glare at him. The man only smirks, making me want to smack the smug look off his face.
“Leone,” Milo interjects. “Maybe we should—”

FALLON
“Silenzio, Milo!” Leone snaps without breaking eye contact. “I would like to savor this moment.”
Sweat drips down my spine as I weigh my options, each one bleaker than the last. The air is thick with my blood and underlying fear, but I make no move, the guns are the only barrier between me and the abyss of my death.
“Last chance,” Leone whispers, his voice a velvet threat. “Join me, or watch everything you love crumble.”
“I choose option three,” I tell him, and I lift one of the guns I’m holding to my temple.
Leone’s laugh, dark and menacing, the sound bounces off the walls. “Bravo, Fallon,” he says, a slow clap accompanying his feigned admiration. “But do you honestly think you can bluff your way out of this?”
“Who said anything about bluffing?” I retort, my gaze locked on his.
“Put the gun down, cara mia,” he coaxes, his tone dripping with deceitful warmth. “We both know you won’t pull that trigger. You’re too precious, too full of life to end it all here.”
My mind races, scra

19